The corridor glowed warm with the amber light of the crystals embedded in the black stone, air humming with the pulse of the music leaking through the massive doors at the end of the hallway where our little party – Veyrakh and I, and my family, along with the dragoness, Elyndra, who had appointed herself Alira’s guardian for the evening – paused. I could feel the beat of the music and dancing through my slippers.
We didn’t look like the people who’d been led out of the tribunal. Not anymore.
Flowers and ribbons adorned our hair. Our dresses were finer than anything I’d ever seen. Alira’s gown looked like it belonged in a museum. The scent of flowers in our hair and the perfumes from the bathwater softly filled the air around us. My father and brothers wore tunics, elegant and sharp. Regal, without gaudiness. My mother looked born to rule.
“Which order should we enter?” Father suddenly asked.
“Father and Mother first,” I said. “Then Tamsin and Kaelin. Then Kyran. Then Orin and Sethus.”
I turned to my youngest brothers, smiling with gritted teeth and a look that promised death, and whispered, “You two so much as breathe wrong, I will make sure you rue the day you were born.”
The twins exchanged a look that promised pure mischief.
Then I turned back to Veyrakh, flashing a dazzling smile. Veyrakh’s lips curved slightly at the ends. “I could arrange a more permanent condition.”
I discreetly dug my elbow in his side, although my pulse kicked a little faster.
“You are my wife,” Veyrakh continued his argument. The pair of dragons, Sorren and Xarvok, the dragon who had rejected Ageli at the Selection Ceremony, who had attended the handfasting ceremony barely an hour prior as his witnesses had already joined the party while we’d waited for Alira to finish eating. “We enter together.”
“Of course we do. But in my culture, the newly married couple enters last so everyone is already there when we enter and are announced.”
He chuckled. “Well, honestly, we don’t really have many customs surrounding mating. The bond forms. The bond is accepted by the couple. The couple appears together socially, and a clutch usually follows soon.” He winked with a suggestive grin. “This is the first time in memory anyone has made any kind of hubbub about a pairing. But we’re always down for an excuse to party.”
The order settled, my family lined up. The dragoness holding Alira stood behind Kaelin and Tamsin. The footmen guarding the door opened it when Veyrakh gave a slight nod to indicate we were ready to enter.
“Sergeant Major Daret Calderin and his wife, Amelie Calderin, parents of Dareya Calderin.” Father and Mother stepped into the great hall as the herald announced their arrival.
“Lieutenant Kaelin Calderin, brother, and his wife, Tamsin. Their daughter, Alira.” Kaelin adjusted the collar of his tunic as Tamsin took his arm, and they entered. Elyndra carried Alira behind her parents.
“The Masters Calderin,” the herald intoned, his voice reverberating through the hall, as my three younger brothers entered, “Kyran, Sethus, and Orin.”
Then Veyrakh and I stood in the doorway. The herald hesitated. A brief shadow flickered across his eyes as Veyrakh shot him a hard look.
“Veyrakh,” he said simply, “and his mate, Dareya.”
I took a steadying breath, and with my arm linked with my new husband’s, stepped forward into the hall and down the steps into the great hall.
The hall was massive. Large enough to hold every building in our entire village inside with room to spare. The ceiling arched so high I couldn’t tell where stone ended and crystal began. Banners hung from massive stone arches.
Dragons were everywhere. Some, in full form, curled on upper ledges, lounging. Others had taken their human shapes, dressed in their finest attire. Hatchlings stayed close to their attentive parents or kin. Whelps darted between the legs of the adults and around pillars, chasing one another. A group had already adopted Sethus and Orin into their games. A few older whelps lounged nearby, watching the celebration with quiet interest.
Immediately, I was separated from him as a crowd danced by, pulling us into the lively celebration. My layers of skirts flared to resemble flames as I was twirled around the floor, passed from dragon to dragon in a dance I did not know, but there was no time to think as I worked to keep my footing on the slick surface of the stone. As the song ended, I was back in Veyrakh’s arms, his hand catching my wrist where his cravat we had used during the handfasting ceremony was still tied.
“How does anyone afford this?” Kaelin muttered, awestruck at the tables weighed down with things that could have been either tableware or treasure and the finest linens.
Veyrakh gave him a look. “We don’t. It’s ours.”
Kaelin blinked. “Yours?
“As in mined from our mountains, forged in our fires, stored in our vaults. Grown or hunted in our lands.”
And Sethus and Orin were still behaved. Mostly.
The whelps had started tossing a flaming sphere the size of a melon. Tamsin intercepted them, letting them know that it wasn’t the best game for a couple human boys to play.
A bit later, I saw Orin reach for a glittering goblet of a bubbling, golden liquid from a passing tray. No sooner had his fingers closed around the stem that a hand came out of nowhere, plucking it clean away.
“No.”
Mother didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t look at him. Just placed the goblet back onto the serving tray and moved on.
Veyrakh’s arm held me close to his side as we fielded yet another set of introductions, well wishes, and congratulations. This time from the dragon who led the tribunal this morning and his mate.
I’d lost sight of the twins for maybe two minutes. Which in Calderin twin time was enough to start a small war or a big friendship. Then I saw them on the other side of the hall, surrounded by three dragon whelplings about their size, all in human form. All children wore grins that spelled trouble in every language. Standing next to an unattended tray of goblets filled with that same golden liquid. I discreetly nudged my husband and pointed out the impending mischief.
We politely excused ourselves and crossed the floor to where the children had each taken a goblet and were now goading each other to drink.
Orin was halfway to taking a sip from his goblet when Veyrakh plucked it from his hand.
“I thought your mother said no,” he said.
“Oh, come on, Veyrakh!” Orin protested, sounding completely scandalized the universe could be so unfair.
Every whelpling froze, dropping their goblets. They looked at the shattered crystal in horror, then up at Veyrakh and me, their eyes wide.
Then the whelpling with copper-colored braids gasped.
“You can’t call the Lord High Warden by his given name!”
“What?” I spun around to face my husband, my brothers’ mischief forgotten as the whelp’s declaration hung in the air.
Lord High Warden? The words echoed in my mind, heavy with everything he hadn’t told me. How many things had he decided I didn’t need to know?
“Answers, Veyrakh. Now.”
Nearby dragons glanced over, eyes narrowing in polite curiosity before turning away, their disinterest exaggerated, as though they were pretending to not eavesdrop.
“Sounds kind of important,” Sethus quipped. The other two whelplings looked at him, scandalized.
“Kind of important?” A gangly dark-haired boy looked even more scandalized and kept a terrified look on Veyrakh, watching his every move. “Dragons have been killed for lesser insults to the Lord High Warden.”
Veyrakh sighed as the bell announcing the impending dinner service rang through the hall. “I planned to tell you later,” he said as we made our way to the head table, positioned on a dais, stopping briefly to whisper in a footman’s ear.
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